Book Image

Object-Oriented JavaScript - Second Edition - Second Edition

Book Image

Object-Oriented JavaScript - Second Edition - Second Edition

Overview of this book

JavaScript is the behavior, the third pillar in today's paradigm that looks at web pages as something that consists of clearly distinguishable parts: content (HTML), presentation (CSS) and behavior (JavaScript). Using JavaScript, you can create not only web pages but also desktop widgets, browser and application extensions, and other pieces of software. It's a pretty good deal: you learn one language and then code all kinds of different applications. While there's one chapter specifically dedicated to the web browser environment including DOM, Events and AJAX tutorials, the rest is applicable to the other environments Many web developers have tried coding or adopting some bits of JavaScript, but it is time to "man up" and learn the language properly because it is the language of the browser and is, virtually, everywhere. This book starts from zero, not assuming any prior JavaScript programming knowledge and takes you through all the in-depth and exciting futures hidden behind the facade. Once listed in the "nice to have" sections of job postings, these days the knowledge of JavaScript is a deciding factor when it comes to hiring web developers. After reading this book you'll be prepared to ace your JavaScript job interview and even impress with some bits that the interviewer maybe didn't know. You should read this book if you want to be able to take your JavaScript skills to a new level of sophistication.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Object-Oriented JavaScript Second Edition
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Built-in Functions
Regular Expressions
Index

Borrowing a constructor


One more way of implementing inheritance (the last one in the chapter, I promise) has to do again with constructor functions, and not the objects directly. In this pattern the constructor of the child calls the constructor of the parent using either call() or apply() methods. This can be called stealing a constructor, or inheritance by borrowing a constructor if you want to be more subtle about it.

call() and apply() were discussed in Chapter 4, Objects but here's a refresher: they allow you to call a function and pass an object that the function should bind to its this value. So for inheritance purposes, the child constructor calls the parent's constructor and binds the child's newly-created this object as the parent's this.

Let's have this parent constructor Shape():

function Shape(id) {
this.id = id;
}
Shape.prototype.name = 'Shape';
Shape.prototype.toString = function () {return this.name;};

Now, let's define Triangle() which uses apply() to call the Shape() constructor...